Missing EU already?Of course, the major issue dominating policy in the UK this year has been Brexit. In July, we reviewed a new book by Professor Janet Morphet which assessed the UK’s future outside the European Union. While not claiming to have all the answers, the book provides a framework for making sure the right questions are asked during the negotiation period and beyond.

One important consideration concerning Brexit is its potential impact on science, technology and innovation. In August, we noted that, while the UK government has been making efforts to lessen the concerns of researchers, anxieties remain about funding and the status of EU nationals currently working in science and technology roles in the UK.

Home thoughts, from home and abroadThroughout the year, we’ve been looking at the UK’s chronic housing crisis. In May, we considered the potential for prefabricated housing to address housing shortages, while in August, we looked at the barriers facing older people looking to downsize from larger homes. In October, we reported on the growing interest in co-housing.

The severe shortage of affordable housing has had a significant impact on homelessness, and not only in the UK. In April, we highlighted a report which documented significant rises in the numbers of homeless people across Europe, including a 50% increase in homelessness in France, and a 75% increase in youth homelessness in Copenhagen.

One European country bucking this trend is Finland, and in July our blog looked at the country’s success in reducing long term homelessness and improving prevention services. Although the costs of Finland’s “housing first” approach are considerable, the results suggest that it’s paying off: the first seven years of the policy saw a 35% fall in long term homelessness.

Keeping mental health in mindA speech by the prime minister on mental health at the start of the year reflected growing concerns about how we deal with mental illness and its impacts. Our first blog post of 2017 looked at efforts to support people experiencing mental health problems at work. As well as highlighting that stress is one of the biggest causes of long-term absence in the workplace, the article provided examples of innovative approaches to mental illness by the construction and social work sectors.

A further post, in August pointed to the importance of joining up housing and mental health services, while in September we explored concerns that mobile phone use may have negative effects on the mental health of young people.

Going digitalAnother recurring theme in 2017 was the onward march of digital technologies. In June, we explored the reasons why the London Borough of Croydon was named Digital Council of the Year. New online services have generated very clear benefits: in-person visits to the council have been reduced by 30% each year, reducing staffing costs and increasing customer satisfaction from 57% to 98%.

Also in June, we reported on guidance published by the Royal Town Planning Institute on how planners can create an attractive environment for digital tech firms. Among its recommendations: planners should monitor the local economy to get a sense of what local growth industries are, and local authorities should employ someone to engage with local tech firms to find out how planning could help to better facilitate their growth.

Back to the future2018 is already shaping up as an important year in policy and practice. One important issue exercising both the public and private sectors is preparing for the General Data Protection Regulation. The Knowledge Exchange blog will be keeping an eye on this and many other issues, and the Idox Information Service, will be on hand to ensure our members are kept informed throughout 2018 and beyond.

Thank you for reading our blog posts in 2017, and we wish all of our readers a very Happy Christmas and a peaceful and prosperous New Year.

Follow us on Twitter to see what developments in public and social policy are interesting our research team.

At this week’s Planning Research Conference, hosted by Queen’s University in Belfast, the winners were announced for the 2017 Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI) Awards for Research Excellence.

These awards recognise the best spatial planning research from the RTPI’s accredited planning schools, and highlight the implications of academic research for policy and practice. In addition, the awards recognise the valuable contribution of planning consultancies to planning research and promote planning research in general.

Idox is proud to have supported the awards since 2015, and this year we sponsored three of the five awards.

Student Award

Winner:

Tangible Places for Intangible Products: The Role of Space in the Creative Digital Economy, Tech City, London

Dr Juliana Martins (Bartlett School of Planning, University College London)

Juliana’s research explores the relationship between space and creative digital production in the Shoreditch area of East London. It seeks to identify the spatial conditions that mediate and support the operation of digital industries in inner-city locations.

The prize for the winner of the Student Award is a one year subscription to the Idox Information Service and an iPad mini.

Commended:

Exploring the Potential of Technology in Enabling the Inclusive Co-Production of Space

David Corbett, University of Cape Town

Sir Peter Hall Award for Wider Engagement

Winner:

An Economic Geography of the United States: From Commutes to Megaregions

The award-winning research provides a new perspective on the functional economic geography of the United States, drawing on data from more than four million commuter flows as the basis for the identification of large-scale “megaregions”.

The prize for the winner of the Sir Peter Hall Wider Engagement Award is £350 towards one paid conference fee bursary to a practitioner or policy-focused conference.

Commended:

A Sustainable and Resilient Northern Power House: A Charrette for the North

At the heart of Rachel’s research is a recognition that the need to deliver more housing requires an understanding of the length of time it takes for sites to come forward and the rate at which they deliver homes. Rachel’s research provides wide-ranging insight and analysis on the lead-in times, planning period and delivery phases of large-scale housing sites.

The prize for the Planning Consultancy Award is one Planning Convention place and two one year’s individual memberships to the Idox Information Service.

Dr Zheng Wang (Bartlett School of Planning, University College London), with Dr Fangzhu Zhang (Bartlett School of Planning, University College London), Professor Fulong Wu (Bartlett School of Planning, University College London)

The full list of finalists in this year’s awards is available on the RTPI website, and information on past entries and winners is also available.

In this 2016 blog post, Dr Paul Cowie, whose Town Meeting project won the 2015 Sir Peter Hall Award for Wider Engagement, reflects on the impact of winning an RTPI Award for Research Excellence.

The Idox Information Service is the first port of call for information and knowledge on public and social policy and practice. For 40 years the service has been saving its members time and money, and helping them to make more informed decisions, improve frontline services and understand the policy environment.

Here at the Idox Information Service, we see our core mission as improving decision making in public policy by improving access to research and evidence. So we are proud once again to be playing a part in the RTPI Awards for Research Excellence.

The awards are intended to recognise the best spatial planning research from the Royal Town Planning Institute’s accredited planning schools, and to highlight the implications of academic research for policy and practice. In addition, the awards recognise the valuable contribution of planning consultancies to planning research and promote planning research generally.

Shortlisted entries

Earlier this month, the shortlist for the 2017 awards was announced. The shortlisted entries for the awards supported by the Idox Information Service are:

Student Award

Exploring the Potential of Technology in Enabling the Inclusive Co-Production of Space

David Corbett (University of Cape Town)

The Impact of Land Ownership Patterns on Delivery of New Housing in Brighton and Hove

Amy Kennedy (University of Brighton)

The Impact of Housing Related Welfare Reforms on the Enactment of Front-line Housing Practices

Nathan Makwana (University of Sheffield)

Tangible Places for Intangible Products: The Role of Space in the Creative Digital Economy, Tech City, London

Dr Juliana Martins (Bartlett School of Planning, University College London)

Sir Peter Hall Award for Wider Engagement

A Sustainable and Resilient Northern Power House: A Charrette for the North

This is the third time that Idox has given its support to the RTPI Awards for Research Excellence. Information about previous award-winners can be found here.

In this 2016 blog post, Dr Paul Cowie, whose Town Meeting project won the 2015 Sir Peter Hall Award for Wider Engagement, reflects on the impact of winning an RTPI Award for Research Excellence.

The Idox Information Service is the first port of call for information and knowledge on public and social policy and practice. For 40 years the service has been saving its members time and money, and helping them to make more informed decisions, improve frontline services and understand the policy environment.

The awards are intended to recognise the best spatial planning research from the Royal Town Planning Institute’s accredited planning schools, and to highlight the implications of academic research for policy and practice. In addition, the awards recognise the valuable contribution of planning consultancies to planning research and promote planning research generally.

Submitted research and its potential implications for planning policy and practice can relate to anywhere in the world (not just the UK and Ireland). The five award categories are:

Academic Award

Early Career Researcher Award

Student Award

Sir Peter Hall Award for Wider Engagement

Planning Consultancy Award

Idox: supporting the planning profession

As the UK’s leading provider of planning and building control solutions to local authorities, Idox actively engages with issues affecting the planning profession. Here at the Idox Information Service, we see our core mission as improving decision making in public policy by improving access to research and evidence, and we are proud to be playing a part in these awards to promote academic, researcher and student excellence in this area.

This is the third time that Idox has given its support to the RTPI Awards for Research Excellence. In 2015, and we sponsored the Student Award, won by Emma Thorpe, a student in the School of Planning and Geography at Cardiff University. Idox also sponsored the Sir Peter Hall Award for Wider Engagement Award, won by Dr Paul Cowie from Newcastle University’s School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape. Paul went on to write a guest blog post for us describing his innovative project, which uses theatre to engage communities in planning.

Last year, Idox again sponsored the Student Award, which was won by Adam van Heerden, of the University of Cape Town, for his research engaging with a marginalised group – the ‘Skarrelers’ in Cape Town’s southern suburbs – who survive on the margins of prime urban spaces by either selling or re-using discarded waste material with value.

The Wider Engagement award was won by Place Alliance – a national movement campaigning for high quality places. In addition, we sponsored the 2016 Planning Consultancy award, which was won by Ryden (lead consultants) along with WSP and Brodies, who delivered the Planning for Infrastructure Research Report for the Scottish Government and Transport Scotland.

In 2017, Idox is pleased once again to be sponsoring the Student, Wider Engagement and Planning Consultancy awards.

Further details on the five award categories, application guidance and entry forms, are available here. The closing date for applications to the awards is 19 May 2017. The finalists will be announced on 24 July, with the winners being named at an awards ceremony in Belfast City Hall on 12 September.

The Idox Information Service is the first port of call for information and knowledge on public and social policy and practice. For 40 years the service has been saving its members time and money, and helping them to make more informed decisions, improve frontline services and understand the policy environment.

This month, the Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI) has published a significant report suggesting ways in which good planning can deliver sustainable economic growth and tackle the country’s housing shortage.

Delivering the Value of Planning argues that properly resourcing councils’ planning teams, improving respect for planners and strengthening their influence, will lead to more and better development.

The challenges facing planners

The report contends that thirty years of almost continual changes in planning policy and regulation, along with cuts to local government budgets, has left the UK “incapable of consistently delivering good quality new places.”

The researchers also express concern about the widespread perception that planners act as a brake on new housing, economic growth and entrepreneurial activity:

“Many changes have been informed by the flawed notion that planning has held back an otherwise efficient, self-regulating market that, if increasingly freed from its constraints, would be able to more rapidly deliver development.”

The impact of these challenges on planners themselves may be seen in the results of an RTPI survey, which found that:

nearly three-quarters (73%) think that constant changes to planning have hindered their ability to deliver good places;

more than half (53%) think that these changes have hindered housing development;

nearly 70% think that they are less able to deliver the benefits of planning compared to 10 years ago.

The report’s focus is on England, and the authors note that the policy debate around planning in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland has generally been more positive and constructive. But they observe that here too planning in many ways “remains under valued, under resourced and under used as a positive enabler and facilitator for development.”

Where planning works well

Throughout the report, the authors argue that effective and proactive planning can deliver considerable economic, social and environmental benefits for society, including:

providing clarity and confidence for investments;

improving the quantity and quality of land for development and construction;

delivering more and better housing development;

lowering the cost of overall development and opening up opportunities for new development.

To demonstrate the contribution of planning to the creation of successful places, the report showcases five award-winning developments in the UK:

Cranbrook in East Devon – a new community created by proactive planning set to provide 7,500 homes over the next 20 years;

Brindleyplace in Birmingham – an urban renewal development which has preserved the area’s heritage whilst revitalising it to attract new business and leisure uses;

Upton in Northampton – a high quality urban extension comprising 1,350 homes, with a commitment to exemplary urban design and environmental sustainability;

Norwich Riverside – a large regeneration project which has transformed a former industrial site into a successful major residential, retail and leisure development;

Fairfield Park in Bedfordshire – where the local authority has played a crucial role in shaping a high quality, attractive development with a strong sense of community and good facilities.

Rising to the challenge: what needs to be done

Delivering the Value of Planning says there is an urgent need to take stock of the UK’s planning systems, and to debate alternative futures that might produce better results. It advocates three key steps in this direction:

planners need to raise greater awareness about how better economic as well as social and environmental outcomes can be delivered through well-planned development;

national and local government needs to consider the particular powers, resources and expertise that planning services require;

in both research and policy, the value of planning needs to be analysed to understand how its economic, social and environmental benefits can be maximised.

The report argues that planning authorities are in a good position to exercise leadership, and to think about places in ways that the private sector often cannot:

bringing together agencies, government bodies and service providers, to identify and deliver the best long-term outcomes across different policy areas;

setting and enforcing high standards of building design;

providing for public and green spaces to enhance the attractiveness of an area to residents, businesses and visitors;

removing risks and obstacles to development, such as contaminated land.

In the midst of a national housing shortage, the report calls for a stronger role for public sector-led developments, pointing to examples of good practice in Manchester, Norwich and Birmingham which have delivered more and better housing and development.

Realising the potential of planning

The RTPI report reinforces the planning profession’s strong conviction that planning is a solution, rather than a problem.

“If the full benefits of planning are truly to be realised, we need reforms that exploit its true potential to reconcile economic, social and environmental challenges through positive and collective action, and which confront those sectoral interests that seek only short-term, self-interested solutions.”

Idox continues to support council planning departments through its land and property solutions.

We are also sponsoring three of the RTPI’s Awards for Research Excellence this year – the Sir Peter Hall award for Wider Engagement, the Planning Consultancy award and the Student award. The results will be announced on Wednesday 7 September 2016.

The 2016 RTPI Convention earlier this week was attended by over 400 people keen to discuss how the profession and the planning system can support the delivery of growth. Being held just a few days after the UK’s Brexit vote, there was a predictable inevitability when every speaker prefaced their talk with the caveat ‘of course everything is uncertain now’. A consistent message across the day however was that regardless of the political uncertainty, the key challenges of demographic change, enhanced mobility and a national housing shortage still need to be addressed. And planning is central to producing long-term, strategic responses to these issues.

While Idox were at the conference exhibition in order to highlight the success of the i-Apply combined online planning and building control submissions service, our Knowledge Exchange team were at the convention itself.

Planning great places

Although there was plenty of discussion during the day about the ongoing impact of planning reform – especially the current review of the planning system in Scotland, the Housing and Planning Act 2016 and the role of the National Infrastructure Commission – the most inspiring sessions focused on practical examples of collaboration and inclusion in strategic planning.

Paul Barnard, Assistant Director for Strategic Planning & Infrastructure at Plymouth City Council described the key ingredients of aspirational plan making. The council has twice won the RTPI’s Silver Jubilee Cup for their pioneering approach, firstly in 2006 and then again last year for their Plan for Homes. This city-wide planning framework addresses issues including land release, infrastructure and delivery. Incredibly, the overarching Plymouth Plan replaced over 138 different strategies.

Paul explained that the challenge for the team was to develop credible policy responses to the social challenges facing the area, and then win over hearts and minds to support these solutions. The benefits of having one integrated strategy is that it sets a vision for ‘place’ that all departments can mobilise behind. Paul argued that the profession has to “believe in proactive, positive planning” and make the case for that every day in their work.

Delivering housing growth

Throughout the conference, the need to deliver more housing was a recurrent theme. A number of speakers argued that direct intervention in the housing market, for example through local housing companies or councils buying sites, was becoming a necessity. Toby Lloyd, Head of Policy at Shelter, pointed out that central government interventions have been focused on the consumer end of the market (for example, Starter Homes) rather than on delivering development sites and land.

Discussions during the day highlighted the current disconnect between where new housing is being delivered and where there are employment growth opportunities. Yolande Barnes, Head of Savills World Research, also suggested that we need to stop planning in terms of ‘housing units’ – people live in neighbourhoods and communities, and we shouldn’t forget this.

The question of how we capture land value, and use this to fund infrastructure development, was also raised repeatedly. In many situations, we have fragmented development delivered by different developers and the question of responsibility for wider public benefits is difficult. Planning tools such as the Community Infrastructure Levy and Section 106 have attempted to address this, but do not necessarily provide a timely or joined up approach to infrastructure delivery.

What if cities could change our world?

While recognising the challenges facing the profession, there was a strong emphasis during the day on the transformational potential of planning.

Alfonso Vegara, of Fundación Metropóli, describing the rejuvenation of Bilbao, suggested that successful planning needs to recognise the new scale of cities and economic development. The interconnections mean that growth corridors or city regions are only going to become more important. Successful economic growth will be dependent on retaining and attracting talent and skills in polycentric areas, and strategic planning needs to take this into account. The successful regeneration of Bilbao “was not a miracle, but the result of vision and leadership.”

This theme was also reflected in Ed Cox’s session on the RTPI’s work with IPPR on the need for an integrated, spatial approach to growing the economy in the North of England. Producing a vision for prosperity will depend on addressing key structural challenges. Maximising opportunities within an interconnected metropolitan region needs to recognise the importance of both cities and their hinterlands. It was also argued that the ‘Northern Powerhouse’ ambition will fail if citizens aren’t helped to feel engaged economically, politically and socially.

A rallying cry for leadership

There has been a trend in recent years for the planning system to be portrayed as a barrier and a bureaucratic obstacle which is getting in the way of growth. One speaker quoted Joseph Konvitz saying “planning has been discredited in the public mind and starved by the public purse”. There was a strong sense during the conference of ‘enough is enough’. The consistent message was that planning and planners are not the problem, and are doing the best they can in a difficult context.

As a profession, planners are trained to take a holistic view. They operate at the junction between politics, finance and community. And they are perfectly placed to provide leadership, foresight and clarity. The skills to deliver great places, which people want to live in, are needed now, more than ever. And there is a need to “rekindle the idea of planning as a key democratic process”.

The challenge at the end of the Convention was “do it with passion, or not at all”. Planning is not a ‘numbers game’ – we need to consider quality of place and ambition, not just the drive for housing completions.

The Idox Information Service has introduced anexclusive offerfor RTPI members to help them with their evidence needs.

Idox’s iApply is leading the way with its integrated application system for planning and building control that has been built to grow with the future in mind.

recognise the best spatial planning research from Royal Town Planning Institute accredited planning schools

highlight the implications of academic research for policy and practice

recognise the valuable contribution of planning consultancies to planning research

promote planning research generally

Submitted research and its potential implications for planning policy and practice can relate to anywhere in the world (not just the UK and Ireland). The five award categories are:

Academic Award

Early Career Researcher Award

Student Award

Sir Peter Hall Award for Wider Engagement

Planning Consultancy Award

As the UK’s leading provider of planning and building control solutions to local authorities, Idox actively engages with issues affecting the planning profession. Here at the Idox Information Service, we see our core mission as improving decision making in public policy, by improving access to research and evidence, and we are proud to be playing a part in these awards to promote academic, researcher and student excellence in this area.

This is the second time that Idox has given its support to the RTPI Awards for Research Excellence. In 2015, we sponsored the Student Award, won by Emma Thorpe, a student in the School of Planning and Geography at Cardiff University. Idox also sponsored the Sir Peter Hall Award for Wider Engagement Award, won by Dr Paul Cowie from Newcastle University’s School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape. Next month, Paul Cowie will be making a guest contribution to our blog to describe the impact of winning the RTPI award.

This year, Idox will again be sponsoring the Student and Wider Engagement awards, as well as the Planning Consultancy award.

The closing date for applications to the awards is 31 May 2016. Further information and application forms are available here.

The Idox Information Service is the first port of call for information and knowledge on public and social policy and practice. For 40 years the service has been saving its members time and money, and helping them to make more informed decisions, improve frontline services and understand the policy environment. For more information see: http://informationservice.idoxgroup.com

In partnership with RTPI, the Idox Information Service has introduced an individual membership offer, which provides a 30% discount on the normal price.

In the latest of our series of Q&As with leading advocates of the use of evidence in policymaking and practice, we talk to Michael Harris, Deputy Head of Research at the Royal Town Planning Institute. The RTPI holds a unique position in relation to planning as a professional membership body, a charity and a learned institute. They have a responsibility to promote the research needs of spatial planning in the UK, Ireland and internationally. They add to the evidence base through in-house research and policy analysis, for example their Policy papers. We interviewed Michael about the research issues facing the planning profession.

Michael, how do you think planners benefit from developing their knowledge and use of evidence?

I think all professions need to be evidence based, it’s the core of being a professional, and it enables you to perform your role, not just on a judgement but an expert professional one. This is the first way planners can benefit; keeping on top of what’s the best available evidence ensures you are effective. All professions have innovators, those who get things done and make changes, and learning from them and using their experience through case studies, best practice and collaboration ensures their good practice gets pushed out to the whole profession and that’s the core benefit of using evidence.

The second benefit is getting the bigger picture, ensuring you understand the major economic, social and environmental challenges. Such as how to create growth, achieve sustainable development, and understand the impact of aging and climate change. All these need new thinking, innovation, and cross discipline knowledge – the best way to do this is through evidence and research.

I work with policy makers to inform policy, and I constantly challenge the perception that planners are an inhibitor of growth. Evidence of the impact and the value which planners add to the growth of places, helps me challenge this perception and benefits the profession as a whole.

What are the main issues facing planners in the next 5 years? What evidence will they need?

The main challenges are:

Resources, having less and less and being asked to do more and more. How do we deal with those demands – evidence and sharing of best practice can play a critical role, we can learn from others, and other professions. How do you move from just evaluating what you do based on efficiency and cutting costs to ensuring effectiveness, and improving the impact and outcome of what you are doing? Evidence can help you stop just thinking about efficiency and also take account of effectiveness.

Demonstrating the value of planning – we need to make a stronger case for the economic, social and environmental role of planners, and not be characterised as processors. Planners carry out a key role in shaping the world around us, not simply managing a process, and the challenge is to continue to demonstrate this.

Ensuring local participation and being more strategic, operating across boundaries, especially for issues such as flooding. It’s difficult for planners to act strategically if the political support isn’t there. There needs to be a will there to enable planners to be truly effective. None the less, a key duty of a professional is to promote understanding; the only way we can do this well, is to work more effectively across boundaries.

My sense is that practitioners value examples of where other authorities have achieved more. Where strategic planning has worked and how you can make it work, or where someone has dealt with limited resources or sustainable development. Case studies are a core strand of accessible evidence, but many are buried in academic research or journals and the RTPI / Idox Information Service are really good at finding them and making them easier to access. This need will only grow greater as more and more information is produced.

In terms of data needs for the future, what we are increasingly seeing potential from is “Big Data”, for example we can make connections between health, social mobility and environment. In the next 5 or 10 years we will be able to draw on these big data sets, which will be a very powerful tool for planners in making decisions about places, and having a strategic, holistic approach to development.

When people talk to you about evidence, research or knowledge, what do they most frequently raise as issues?

The big challenge is time – planners haven’t got time to go looking for evidence – and accessibility of research papers, which are buried in academic journals. The academic language is a barrier, and its timeliness. Often it’s interesting to read but doesn’t relate to the current policy context, so research needs to be more timely and more practical and applied. Alongside time, support from their organisations to look at evidence – the access to evidence resources and time or budget to attend CPD is frequently raised as an issue.

Not enough research is accessible; academic incentives aren’t about applicability; it’s driven by the need to be of a high standard, set by other academics and journals. It is possible to do academic work which is useable and there are lots of good examples, but there are barriers for the academic to deal with. There is good academic research which is relevant but it’s difficult to find. There are also issues about the subjects covered and academic’s interest versus policy maker’s priorities – sometimes there are overlaps but often they are very different.

For example Value of Planning is a key policy issue at the moment – what is the economic impact of planning – but academics don’t see this as an issue as they are already positive about planning. They take for granted that planners have an impact, so don’t see the need to investigate the nature and form of that impact.

What are the hard-to-spot mistakes when it comes to developing your knowledge, things you which you really need to avoid?

Two things I would highlight. Given what the constraints are, it’s easy to rely on an old body of evidence, what you were taught when you were being trained, and not keeping it up to date. That’s why Idox Information Service and RTPI research, especially practice notes which are aimed at helping practitioners refresh knowledge and keep up to date, are essential.

There is also a danger of being too narrow, and not looking at wider areas and topics which affect planning. This creates a narrower perspective on development. Briefing services are really helpful to overcome this, looking at a variety of reports and papers – you can look at the areas you are interested in directly, but you can also scan the broader perspective. Planning should be about not thinking in silos, but how does ‘this’ affect ‘that’ – how can people travel to work, access jobs or get outdoors and you need to think about and be exposed to broader ideas to understand these issues.

Thinking ‘economically’ is something we are trying to promote, not just the traditional way, but our argument is that planning is critical to the economic success of places; it can make them more attractive, livelier, sustainable, and environmentally appealing, so it’s the broader contribution to success that is important. Every planning decision contributes to the success of a place.

How do you think people will be doing evidence, research and knowledge development in 5 years’ time?

I would like to see a profession known for its evidence-based practice, with practitioners able to find, and understand, in an accessible way, the latest evidence.

The future should be where academic research is more and more accessible and applicable to practice having a real impact on delivery. Collaboration between practitioners and researchers makes research more relevant. Projects which have come out of these partnerships have real impact and RTPI will be supporting these projects in the future.

If you had a list of ‘best-kept secrets’ about research, evidence and knowledge you would recommend, what would you include and why?

So much stuff out there, how do you find out what’s going on? Social media and twitter is an incredibly useful research tool – following research organisations, following blogs, can be really useful. Knowledge isn’t static any more, and things you read only 5 years ago can be quite out of date now, and planners need to continually keep up to date. The RTPI and Idox blogs are good in terms of wide-ranging coverage and highlighting latest research but there are plenty out there.

What led you to a role in research and evidence development?

I did a PhD in politics and public policy, was always more interested in how you can make research more relevant and of interest to policy makers, but I am also aware of the barriers for academics doing this.

I have always sat in organisations that do this bridging. RTPI, as a learned society is doing this for its members. Research is important, but only important if it’s communicated and people can act on it, otherwise it is lost and never read. I see myself as facilitating its use and contribution to change and improvement in practice.

Academic research being read is vital, but academics need to understand the policy constraints, and the importance of making a compelling argument to change practice and policy today.

The Idox Information Service has introduced an exclusive offer for RTPI members to help them with their evidence needs.

Last week we attended the 2014 Wales Planning Conference, which was also the Wales’ Centenary Conference, at City Hall, Cardiff. We were primarily there to highlight our products and services to planners but fortunately we also got to attend some of the sessions.

The key themes and ideas to emerge from this highly engaging event were: Continue reading →